Washblog

I'm wondering...Why do YOU think your
non-old
non-hippie
non-puppety pothead
normal, sensible friends and
union brothers & sisters are not participating?

If perception is reality, then the world must be flat and the sun must revolve around it.

Puppets, btw, can be very expressive and effective.  And young people, potheads or no, who want to partake, or even to take over & steer something... that's a reflection of their caring about the issue -- and maybe a reflection of their energy/youth/self-centeredness.  All those things are good things.  It's up to the organizers to be able to maintain control over the situation -- not to complain, but to recognize that as something that happens when you try to do anything involving other people.  I've organized several things and know how hard it is to do that -- in fact, I suck at it; it's probably my main failing as an organizer.  Alas.  I have many times felt quite sorry for my poor self....

But you have so many important issues touched on in here.  They all relate, to me, to growing the coaltion/collaboration.  There already is to me a remarkable development in this war -- an emerging coalition, it seems, between peace groups and military family groups advocating for fair treatment of soldiers/veterans.

To what extent does Protest-as-pageantry contribute to that coalition-building ... to what extent does it detract?  And, as Dina asked, how do we get more working people to stand up publicly, join in the demonstrations against this horrible war that, as you say, hurts working people the most.

The pictures on this site of the Olympia rally and the Seattle rally seem to me to show two different cultures of rising up against this war.  I agree with you, I could not agree more, that we need people who are not in the 'protest culture' to join in the public outcry.  Many would want to but don't quite know how.

Other thing -- the contrast between local groups, grassroots groups rising up in spontaneous expression of political feeling....  and the national groups such as ANSWER Coalition, which have long-time agendas in addition to peace...

Ivy, I believe what you have shared is your genuine reaction to a planning meeting.  I applaud your courage in sharing it rather than choosing to let it be your last planning meeting without saying a word about how you experienced it and simply not returning - or dropping out.  I don't find your reaction too much different than reactions I've had at some of the planning meetings where I have been invovled.

I'd like to get back to your story, follow, add to the discussion, but mostly I wanted to post a  comment to encourage you not to be put off in developing this conversation.

I see Noemie invited more discussion, breaking down some of the elements you touched on, and I am curious to see if that will happen.  Being 'new' to the peace/activist movement myself (new since invasion of Iraq nearly four years ago), it has been a learning experience for me and I have to acknowledge there have been times when I've been rather surprised and flat out startled by some of the approaches I've encountered among the various activist-peace groups.

Frankly speaking, as a military family with 2 in our family deployed and returned from Iraq and one returning for a repeat deployment to Iraq, I often find I have little patience for what I personally consider frivolous endeavors in a most serious matter. The matter of the lives of our loved ones deployed in Iraq.  Puppets and suggestions of puppets do little to bring me a sense of comfort that the seriousness of our message (military families speaking out) will be taken seriously. Puppets are but one example, as I find myself impatient with other ideas and tactics that I find frivolous. Which isn't to say that puppets or other frivolity are wrong tactics, more that it is difficult for me as military family to appreciate the frivolity in what seems a life and death matter to me.  

I am coming to learn though, that people respond to and receive information in different ways, so  it makes sense that there is not 'one true way' to approach the situation, but perhaps a way to blend the differing styles to form a deliberate mosaic rather than a kaleidescope of noisy confusion.  For example, sometimes puppets might work better than other times.

I have been known to say that the peace/activism movement seems to have become 'a way of life' for some people.  I never intended for it to become a way of life for myself.  I had what I considered a fairly ordinary life prior to speaking out as a military family and I had thought I would return to that ordinary life in a years time; then it became two years, and three years, now four years and still counting - what looks like for a decade or more of aggressive war in the Middle East.  

I was a young military wife myself at the time of Vietnam when my then husband was drafted and deployed in Vietnam.  I didn't participate with the 'hippie' movement, the protests, the demonstrations, drugs and the lifestyle. But I do know decades later that had not people found creative ways to register concern, Vietnam war would have continued perhaps another decade.  I didn't relate to 'those people' then, nor are military wives and families conditioned to relate to 'those people' then or now.  

Yet, here we are, only a few decades later into another Iraqanam, perhaps to become Irananam.  That was not supposed to happen - ever again in my lifetime and especially not something I ever wanted my children or their children to go through.  What, I think to myself, if there hadn't been 'those people' - the hippies, the demonstrators, the protest marchers, the organizers, the Vietnam veterans protesting.  Who would be here today to remind us of how it was once done and spark the hope that it can be done again?

I do believe there is a need for old and new, creative approaches to exercising our Constitutional rights of freedom of expression, but more than that, I am impatient for it to be effective - meaningful - registering and having an impact on those in power to change the course.  Given that this President and his Administration has said clearly they will not change the course, it seems to me that it falls to Congress to exercise their empowerment to change the course.  It is my yearning that our collective efforts register with them that we mean what we say.

Somehow I feel I need to say more and lack the words to express the concept because it is about coming together in collaboration and in mutual respect.  Therein lies what can be the challenge though -- the mutual respect.  The collaborations, I have seen, but sometimes it seems to me from my experiences the effort of 'mutual respect' is a bit more challenging; sometimes a lot more challenging.

Coalitions, groups, communities, people come together with different approaches, strategies and tactics in how to shape, package and deliver the message. Sometimes I find they don't come together on a core aspect - what the message is, clearly and concisely.  That can result in a hodgepodge of messages and different agendas which collide  rather than merge.  I have found though, that when there is cooperative, mutually respectful collaboration, that energy manifests in the activity of the venue.  

What my definitions of cooperative, mutually respectful collaboration might differ sharply with another person's definitions of the same. Thus, the work of cooperative, mutually respectful collaboration is a big part of the planning.  It takes time, it takes courage, it takes willingness to be honest, candid yet respectful and it means hammering out the differences - expecting there will be differences to be hammered out.  All of that takes time, energy, resources; it can be energizing or the reverse and be completely draining.  

Busy lives with busy people carrying jobs, school, work, family, home may find they do not have that kind of time to give to planning.  All the more reason, the message and packaging of the message is so important.  All the more reason why those who give the time in planning are invaluable and important to the continued moving forward of the message.    

I really would like to see this discussion developed, and I would like it to develop in such a way that it is not one way or another.  Enough with the polarizations - it happens among the peace/activist groups as much as it happens among political groups. Rather I'd like to see how we can break down the elements for discussion and build up new ways to encourage collaboration among different focus groups.  

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends." Martin Luther King Jr.